~ A tiny purple in the monochrome ~

A long time ago, so long that I didn’t remember when it was, I was a kid who had nothing better to do. My days were pretty boring, nothing unusual happened.  I simply passed the day by fooling around, hoping that today would passed quickly.

In an empty and gloomy classroom where no one presented, I was drawing characters in my notebook halfheartedly. Everyone except me was out for club activities outside the class.

What a fool! They waste their time to do such a silly thing in the hot temperature like this. What is the fun in playing comrades anyway? I don’t understand. Not like I’m interested either. I don’t plan to join it since it’s useless.

Before, there were many people who like to stay at class like me rather than joining club activities. However, as time passed, one by one started to leave. Yesterday, one of my classmates was still here, now she was one of those idiots. In this large classroom, I was the only one who was left. I looked at my drawing that looked like unorganized scribbles. Terrible!

Suddenly, I heard the sound coming from the door. I saw my homeroom teacher, he was a little surprised to see there was still a kid who stayed in the classroom.

“What are you doing here?”

“Nothing.”

“Then, why don’t you go with your friends outside?”

“I don’t interested.”

He was taken aback by my flat and blunt answer, maybe it was hard to believe that those words came from a kid, an intelligent kid like me. He sat at the teacher’s desk and took a paper on top of the desk. He began correcting documents while inspecting what I did from a far. Please, don’t stare too hard teacher! I know what you’re thinking. He seemed worried, well, it was normal for the teacher to be worried about my behavior.

***

The next day, in the afternoon after lunch break ended, I sat on my assigned desk and put out the usual notebook from my bag. The front pages of my notebook were full of study materials, questions and answers, and the perfect one hundred points that I already modified into many kinds of face images. On the other hand, the back pages of my notebook were full of scribbles all over the places, I couldn’t even guess what I was trying to draw that time.

It was very noisy outside, full of children laugh and the yell of club members. Whenever they were training, it was noisy, really noisy. It was kind of hard to focus on my drawing, fortunately this class was the most peaceful place in the time like this. Empty, silence, and void of people. Sometimes, even when I was disturbed by the annoying mix sound outside, I could still sleep here. More exactly, I could still pretend to sleep peacefully even if I heard the annoying and loud screams outside. Yeah, that was one of my specialties, pretending to sleep like an innocent angel.  Many people had already been fooled by my skill, and I could get useful information to threaten them later.  Even though I had never used it once, as long as they didn’t anger me their secrets were safe.

When I concentrated to draw in the notebook, my teacher suddenly showed up in front of me out of the blue. Ack, I didn’t realize he was standing there! Since when was it? Looks like I was too caught up on my drawing that I didn’t sense any people approaching me. Although I was surprised, my expression in normal people eyes looked like a person who knew all along and said ‘Oh…so you were there?’.

“Rather than drawing pictures like that, why don’t you try to join them outside?”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“Then, solve the questions in page twenty of the science book!”

“Ok.”

Still with the same attitude like yesterday, I answered my teacher’s questions. I began to read the questions in the book like my teacher said, and wrote the answers at the same time. It was a piece of cake for me, in no time I finished a whole bunch of questions.

“Do you need me to write it in another paper?” I asked him.

“No need.”

I could sense that he was a little bit agitated and probably thought ‘What should I do with this kid?’. Once again he asked me “Why don’t you try to play outside with your friends?” . He seemed hopeless but still maintained the caring and kind attitude a teacher should have. Should I answer like before? But, angering a teacher isn’t good. I turned silent while thinking what the best option to this situation was.

“Just try it out once!  If you don’t like it, you can come back here and I won’t disturb you again.”

“Fine.”

***

After making a deal with the teacher, I went to the training ground beside the school. I guess trying once wouldn’t hurt. After a few minutes of walking, I arrived at the red field. I could see some of my classmates were standing on the field under the scorching sun. They were drenched on sweat but they didn’t look tired at all. They looked much focused on their task that they didn’t even realize I was there. I was watching them from the sidelines.

It was beautiful, I was enchanted by them. I was observing their training in silence, what they did and how they did it. The wind breezed and the falling leaves danced in the wind. The red ground looked like the burning fire of their spirit. The purple petals of flower from the tree swirled around them as they moved their bodies in harmony.  One of the flower petals landed in my palm, it was tiny and soft. To think that I would be charmed by them the moment I laid my eyes on it. However, there was still one thing I didn’t understand. The coach called for a short break, and finally they noticed me. They were quite surprised to see me here, and grateful that I finally took an interest in club activities. I could only put a smile to answer all their questions.

“O…yeah, I remember! There’s something that I would like to ask, what are you doing before?” I raised a question to one of my classmate.

“Before? Oh…it’s the formation!” seeming to understand what I mean, she answered my question.

“Formation?”

“Yes, we lined up and did a special move together so it would create a special effect.”

“I see.”

Seeing a new face gathered around the kids, the coach looked at my direction, and asked my name. He also asked whether I wanted to try training with them kindly. After seeing their effort, I guess trying once won’t be too bad.  I accepted the coach invitation and became a part of the group. I heard from my friends that my best friend who was also my seatmate and my rival was appointed to be the captain. Just what I would expected from her, always trying to be the best in everything.

***

 The daily training program was not too hard, although I was the latest to join, I could catch up to them quickly. Somehow, my switch had been turned on since I joined this club. My laid-back personality was replaced by passionate one. I became very active, almost hyper active whenever the training started. I could learn many kind of things I never encountered before, it was interesting. In a short time, I managed to climb for the top, my position as a regular was guaranteed and I became the vice-captain.

My day that used to be boring somehow seemed a little bit colorful. Every day was different, I who used to hate the bright sky outside came to like it. I would always wait for the time to train, even though it was tiring, it was worth it. When the time for the competitions was near, the training became more intense than usual. We were assigned private coach, our seniors, to help us master the skills need in the competitions. We even skipped classes for weeks, strangely, although I missed many classes I was still the top three scorers in the school. Our hard work bore fruits, we won many competitions. Our skills also worked for other areas, we also won school competitions other than our club objective.

I would have never thought that someday I would also be one of them, the idiots who only knew how to train and the idiots whom I used to laugh at. To be those idiots was fine I guess, it was not as bad as I thought. To the contrary, everyday although it was not always happy, it was rather fun to spend my time with. I didn’t regret to try it out, I should thank the teacher who helped me to find it.

“What are you doing? Wow, it’s beautiful!” one of my friends was standing behind me, and she looked at the picture I was drawing.

“I like this picture too.” I said those words with a smile.

“Isn’t it the flower in the back of the school?”

“Yeah, I think it is very beautiful.”

The scenery from that time still lingered in my heart, I couldn’t forget it easily. Even now I was still amazed at it like the first time I saw it. I was more surprised to see that I could engrave the scenery into a picture by my hand. I changed, the day I chose to change, I brushed the canvas with new colors that affected my life. It was amazing how a first step could change my entire world.

“This purple flower, isn’t it called paper flower? It has the same name as our group.”

“You’re right.”

~ Paper Flower End ~

~ Wimecloud ~

A.N: Just a light story to make the day. It tells us how a small change is not entirely small, it can change our entire world just because we change our point of view. Sometimes, people failed to see how important it is to look at something with different point of view. Many people feel contented with their situation, without realizing how small their world is just like the main character. There are many things outside we never saw before, waiting for us to come there. What you need to do is to open the curtain in your room. I pray that all of you will also find the thing important to you, the treasure that is still hiding behind your window.